A renowned authority on East Africa examines the effects of witchcraft beliefs on African culture, politics, and family life.

Encounters with Witchcraft is a personal story of a young man’s fascination with African witchcraft discovered first in a trek across East Africa and the Congo. The story unfolds over four decades during the author’s long residence in and many trips to Kenya, Tanzania ...(Read More)

The robust memoirs of an unusual twentieth-century seeker and student of G. I. Gurdjieff.

This is a rambling narration of the life of Martin Benson and in particular his unique relation with the mystical philosopher G. I. Gurdjieff. The time period includes the years at Fountainebleau, where Gurdjieff had established a school of sacred students. Benson’s intimate relation to the master illuminates the living...(Read More)

Voices of Women Singing is about women singing from Paris to Guadeloupe, New York to New Orleans; from the 1950s to the present. It’s about love and song, suffering and loss, tragedy and joy, betrayal and atonement. And it’s funny, too.

A lively and entertaining memoir of a life in public service to the city and state of New York.

When he was twenty-five, Sam Aldrich danced with Queen Elizabeth II in London. By the time he was thirty-seven, he was marching with Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma. Recounting the journey between and beyond those two points, and musing over the irony of the contrast they represent, is the subject of this remarkable an...(Read More)

Enlightening encounters with the world’s religions from a Hindu perspective.

One Religion Too Many is a Hindu pilgrim’s progress through the world’s religious traditions. An eminent scholar of comparative religion, Arvind Sharma provides a firsthand account of how he came to be a party to the dialogue of religions—first with his own religion, then with the comparative study of ...(Read More)

Twenty-five celebrated writers share the encouraging words and timeless wisdom of the coaches who influenced their lives.

For everyone who has heard the beloved whistle at the end of a grueling practice, only to eagerly await the next, Coach is a treasure trove of insights and wisdom from the mouths of those we cherish, seen through the eyes of those we admire most. This book offers the reflections of tw...(Read More)

FINALIST – 2011 ForeWord Book of the Year in the Autobiography/Memoir Category

A tribute to the Italian American family and its trying bonds of love.

“I was born in 1944, but raised in the twelfth century.” With that, Joanna Clapps Herman neatly describes the two worlds she inhabited while growing up as the child of Italian American immigrants in Waterbury, Connectic...(Read More)

Food-based reflections on Italian food, American culture, and globalization.

Despite the inclusion of six classic recipes, Bitter Greens is not an ethnic cookbook but a Roman banquet of political satire, cultural criticism, and culinary memoir. Set primarily in the Empire State and arranged like the courses of a traditional Italian meal, Anthony Di Renzo’s wide-ranging essays meditate on Italian ...(Read More)

In this beloved classic, Richard Selzer recounts his childhood in Troy, New York, during the Great Depression. No easy town to come of age in, Troy in the 1930s was a city long past its prime, “full of whores and TB,” and as the son of a general practitioner, Selzer had occasion to view both up close. In the midst of this g...(Read More)

Both humorous and poignant, Bungalow Kid recalls what it was like to spend a summer in the Catskills at the height of the region’s “glory days.”

The year is 1958. Philip, a twelve-year-old kid from the Bronx, is getting ready for his family’s annual trip upstate, where he’ll spend the summer in a bungalow colony in the tiny village of Loch Sheldrake, a faraway fairyland of ...(Read More)